Biorhythms

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November 21, 2012 |
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Chemist turned electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer creates platforms for public participation using robotics, computerized surveillance and telematic networks. In Pulse Index, individuals place their finger in a sensor that records their fingerprint and heart beat and displays them alongside hundreds of others to create a pulsating horizon line of skin.

Present state of mind?

Concerned. There is deep trouble in ‘my’ three countries. In Mexico, documented electoral fraud is about to bring the PRI party back to power. In Canada, the Harper government is converting a nation that was proudly environmentally and socially concerned into an international embarrassment. In Spain the Rajoy government is destroying the livelihood of low and middle class families instead of going after the bankers and speculators responsible for the melt–down.

Biggest success?

The project Voz Alta [loud voice] is an interactive installation to remember the Tlatelolco student massacre in Mexico City (1968). The audience can speak into a megaphone that automatically controls the brightness of four searchlights that relay their voice over Mexico City as quiet light flashes; tuning into 96.1FM radio allows people anywhere in the city to listen in live to what the lights are saying.

How did you get here?

Perseverance, intuition, enthusiasm, luck.

Heroes?

Chuck D, Agnes Martin, Alan Turing, Alejandro Jodorowski. There are many more, these examples come to my head as people whose passion and talent I admire.

Biggest failure?

My career as DJ Taco Stand. I'm a bad DJ but I love doing it!

Fear?

Right now it is Mitt Romney, not him, but the world view he represents.

Inspiration?

In science, in night-clubs, swimming, psychotherapy and with my family.

Plans for the future?

To become a better father to my three kids, to go back to school, to pay my studio assistants a better salary, to start a foundation in Mexico, to be mindful that all plans for the future change.

What would you change?

Like everyone, I'd love to come up with an alternative economic model that is not based on unsustainable growth, that values the environment and culture, and that can support an open society.

Until June 1, 2013, you can see Pulse Index in the Focal Points group show (curator: Tim Wilcox), Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester.

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volTA was a magazine on Science, Technology and Society in Europe, initiative of fifteen technology assessment organisations that worked together in the European PACITA project aimed at increasing the capacity and enhancing the institutional foundation for knowledge-based policy-making on issues involving science, technology and innovation. It was published between 2011 and 2015 in 8 numbers.